February - The Creative Year: Walking the Dog.

Unused creative energy can be a force to wrestle with so finding the time and self belief for it is vital. Here’s inspiration and practical exercises to help you fall back in love with your creativity

There’s a particular kind of heartbreak that comes from falling out of love with your own creativity. You don’t mean to neglect it. Life happens. Work, family, dinner, laundry, the endless loop of being needed. Days slip into weeks, then months. One day, you look up and realise that the thing that once set you alight—the painting, the writing, the music, the making—has been left somewhere in the past, gathering dust like an unopened love letter to yourself.

Elizabeth Gilbert calls this the unwalked dog theory of creativity. You know how a dog, if not taken out regularly, gets wild and frantic, pulling on the leash, yanking you in all directions the moment you finally get around to walking it? Creativity is the same. Ignore it too long, and it doesn’t disappear—it just gets unruly. It howls at odd hours. It tugs at your heart when you’re too busy to listen. And when you do return to it, it can be overwhelming, messy, almost too much to handle.

For many women, the leash is left hanging for years. We are, after all, brilliant at caring for everyone but ourselves. We give. We nurture. We put our creative energy into the fabric of daily life—beautiful meals, comforting spaces, wise words given freely to friends in need. And we tell ourselves it’s enough. That our own creative hunger is indulgent, unnecessary, or best saved for ‘when there’s time.’

But here’s the truth: There is never time. Time doesn’t arrive on a silver tray, announcing itself politely. If we wait for the perfect, uninterrupted moment, we will be waiting forever. Creativity must be stolen back, in scraps if necessary, in five-minute bursts or stolen Sunday afternoons. And when we do return to it, we must treat it not as a guilt-ridden duty, but as a love affair.

February’s Creative Exercises: Falling Back in Love with Your Creativity

After a long absence, creativity doesn’t always welcome us back with open arms. It can be awkward, like running into an old lover after years apart. You sit down to write and feel clumsy. You pick up the paintbrush, and it feels like trying to dance with two left feet. But love, real love, doesn’t need perfection. It needs presence.

As January’s exercises were about simply getting started, February’s will help deepen that reconnection and build creative momentum. They’re designed to be immersive but still manageable within a busy life.

1. The Artist’s Letter

Write a letter from your creativity to you. Imagine it as a forgotten friend who has been waiting patiently for your return. What does it have to say? Is it hurt, understanding, eager, mischievous? Let it tell you what it needs, what it misses, and what kind of adventure it’s hoping for next. Don’t overthink—just write and see what emerges.

2. The One-Hour Obsession

Set aside a single hour this week to fall headlong into something that fascinates you. Not something useful or productive—something that sparks pure curiosity. Research a strange historical event, sketch the shadows in your kitchen, try to capture the exact colour of the sky with paint, write a scene about a woman who disappears into a forest and is never seen again. The only rule is that it must feel compelling to you.

3. The Daily Ten-Minute Dare

For one week, commit to creating for ten minutes a day—but with a catch. Each day, do something slightly outside your comfort zone. If you normally paint in soft, delicate tones, go bold and chaotic. If you write poetry, try a surreal short story. If you journal, write in the third person as if you’re a character in a novel. The goal isn’t mastery—it’s play, risk, and discovering something unexpected in your work.

These exercises aren’t about results. They’re about strengthening that creative muscle, deepening your connection, and proving to yourself that your creativity is still very much alive.

Because here’s the thing: It is essential. The world doesn’t just benefit from women’s creativity—it needs it. It needs your voice, your vision, your way of seeing things. It needs beauty and poetry and stories and wild, uncontainable ideas.

You don’t have to be prolific. You don’t have to be perfect. But you do have to begin.

So, this month, I challenge you: Pick up the leash. Open the love letter. Walk back into the wild, beautiful, necessary thing that is your creativity.

It’s been waiting for you.